Soul and Sanity V2
by Warrion
Summary: As apocalyptic events unfold around one TARDIS, another materializes in suburban London and finds she alone can save the world by saving her future self. The 5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa, and Turlough find themselves embroiled a paradox with the 9th Doctor a
1. Chapter 1

**Soul and Sanity**

**Hi everyone…**

**This is a repost of an earlier story, taking into account… I HOPE the very wise editorial feedback I was given regarding the formatting on I am much more accustomed to and didn't realize some of the translations were not the same.**

**Hope this works better for everyone… and so: on with it!**

**An episode interactive story… As apocalyptic events unfold around one TARDIS, another materializes in suburban London and finds she alone can save the world by saving her future self. The 5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa, and Turlough find themselves embroiled in the paradox that could end the world and the 9th Doctor confronts his own set of demons. Total spoiler for "Father's Day."**

**I don't own these guys… I just have an overactive imagination that has some playmates wholly owned and profitable only to the BBC. However, I am open to offers of writing jobs on the other side of the pond.**

**Before we begin: **

**Since we all love angst for our favorite Time Lord, we came across the idea that the Fifth Doctor was the Doctor who would most likely have the worst time giving the worst news… the best one at giving a certain other Doctor a lecture about instigating paradoxes. … and the most ironic person to give lectures about involvement. While this story is canon, those of you who like my other fics know that hatred of irony is my Fifth Doctor's most frequent and plaintive utterance. I did also think that, despite all the fantastic character work that was done in "Father's Day" that this was a situation that no previous Doctor would EVER have allowed a companion into no matter how a loved one had died. The temptation and the trauma would have been too great. The idea boiled down to Nine needing to be taken to task for this incident and Five perhaps the best Doctor to do it, through Three is a good one also.**

**Enjoy.. I hope.**

"**I can't believe it. I really can't. All the crazy things you've done and this has got to be worst."**

"**I did say I was sorry, Tegan. Surely that counts for something, nor is the situation irreparable."**

**Tegan rubbed the sleep out of her eyes for the sixth time that morning, or what she had come to think of as morning. It was hard to adjust to the fact that the Doctor barely slept and the ship responded mostly to him. Her own room, however, had adjusted itself to a 24 hour cycle to match her need for some sort of reference. She wondered what cycle it was on for Turlough and automatically frowned as she pictured him hanging from a closet bar like a bat, sleeping opposite her on purpose because he knew she was watching him, even if she didn't know why. He always looked as if he'd been up for hours when she awoke, which was one if the reasons she like to get herself started as soon as possible. The absence of her usual means of doing so was why she was also currently irritated. She looked down at the display as she closed on the side of the console where the Doctor stood.**

"**I've found it, the shortest hop in the time-stream to Earth. If you were a little more open-minded about trying…"**

"**We're out of coffee, Doc'. It's simple, and since we're doing a bit of marketing, we're a bit low on celery. Seems some of us just don't eat it."**

"**Low on celery?" He turned to stare at her as he tabbed in the last coordinates, half alarmed and half wondering if she was fibbing just to alarm him. She smiled up at him after returning his stare dead-pan after a few minutes. He failed to keep the smile off his own face a moment later and with a self-conscious glance at the bit of plant-life attached to his lapel, pointed at the screen on the console. "Here we are, Earth, 1987. The market's a few blocks away but there's probably a bit too much of crowd to move in closer. It is Saturday after all."**

**Turlough emerged from the side door as Tegan was adjusting her shoe, one hand on the console as she balanced. The Doctor sighed to himself at the mutual polite smirk of dislike that crossed the faces of his two companions in lieu of smiles of greeting. The warm, engaging grin that Tegan was capable of lit her face when Nyssa emerged behind Turlough.**

"**Where are we? I heard the TARDIS land."**

"**Earth, London exactly, a little suburb with a few shops just down the block," The Doctor answered, his eyes twitching at something he was seeing on the console. **

**Tegan leaned over it and blocked his view as her relieved smile changed to one of reassurance at the look of worry in Nyssa's eyes. "Nope, a bit off my time, Nyss. Just stopping for supplies."**

**Nyssa's smile relaxed and then returned seeming somewhat forced. "Oh, excellent! You'll have your coffee then, right? You'll have it soon?"**

**The Doctor glanced with sympathy at Nyssa, with whom Tegan shared a room, wondering what it was like to actually have Tegan stumbling around immediately after first waking, knowing there had been no coffee for the past six days. The irony was they had just left Earth, left Mawdryn's nightmarish attempts to drain his remaining regenerations. Little wonder he'd been uninclined to go back to feed his companion's morning monster. He'd relented when she'd finally apologized and asked nicely. Of course, given the way things were going with Turlough, she might have found out that caffeine was toxic to his species.**

**Sighing aloud this time, he herded Tegan toward the other two and ushered them all out of the door, pausing quickly to lock it. A sound was echoing through the timeship that was wiped from existence before it could reach his ears, the sound that was and couldn't be, a slow, single toll of the cloister bell. It hung in the emptiness of what had been; for a moment only the sound remained.**

**The Doctor stared about as he scurried to keep up with Tegan, the skin on the back of his neck coming to attention as they moved farther from the time ship. The more he stared, it seemed, the less he saw, fewer cars, fewer bits of litter blowing about, fewer streams of smoke on the horizon, fewer people. **

**They were six blocks along when he realized his small party was the only sign of human habitation that existed as far as he could sense and see. He stopped abruptly, holding Nyssa back with him, but he could tell that she wasn't surprised by the hand on her shoulder or the look of cold alarm in his eyes. He saw it in her own as his awareness of trouble fed hers. **

**Tegan and Turlough stopped a few yards ahead, realizing they were alone, and after a glance at one another followed the searching gazes of the Time Lord and the young Trakenite. In moments, they moved back to them, their own sense of dread finally engaged. Tegan drew herself up slightly, "Doc', where is every---?"**

"**Later, Tegan. All of you, back to the TARDIS, we haven't much..." His voice failed him moments later, his face becoming ashen as he stared at the winged stone beasts circling the small suburb, distant but closing quickly, too quickly for his companions to cover six blocks at a run. Tegan's hand on his arm broke his transfixed stare. **

"**What's wrong? What are those things?"**

**He swallowed and looked around at the buildings surrounding them, guessing their ages from their architecture and wear, from their evidence of habitation and the signs out front, from the cornerstones. The church… the church… it would be the oldest and strongest. He took an unsteady breath and looked at the young faces staring up at him in varied degrees of increasing alarm and worry. **

"**They're…; they are something that should never be. They are… the end, the end of everything." The words seemed to galvanize him and he turned toward the church and pointed. "In there, hurry. I need time to think, what there is of it. Go. Go!" Cursing Tegan's shoes, he grabbed her arm and dragged her as they ran.**

**Gashed, twisted, uncaring of collateral, Time contorted. Reality collapsed. Reality reformed. …then distorted and bled. Bled a same drop again. Again. Again. Within the wound a hidden door closed, a door ancient to that which surrounded it, a last stronghold. Around it, the wound festered anew. The parasites fed.**

**The Doctor shivered as he felt a weakness in the fortress of age around them, the refuge he had herded the wedding party back into opened for a terrifying moment and sealed again. Somewhere, a door had opened to them, more strangely it had closed…, and he knew it could not close on its own, a moment's weakness should have been all the Reapers needed to be upon them.**

**His eyes drifted over the wedding party, its numbers halved and quartered, guests vanished in the bloodied mists of Time. They were his charges now, his alone, a Time Lord to whom Time had become an enemy, a Time Lord who couldn't even tell how much Time they had left… how little.**

**He looked from one side of the church to the next between the infant and the young, vibrant woman she would be. He wondered how great the wound would become when the greatest paradox came, when Rose Tyler, in an instant, died twice. **

**The image of her vanishing from existence ran its cold knife through him and he gathered the cold into himself and turned it outward. He could only suspend the moment for a brief time within the ancient walls; it would do nothing to stop the passage of time beyond them, but it would give him time to think, time away from their voices and the hope they placed upon him, hope worse than accusation. Around him, Time, already fluxing and weakened, was easily slaved to his will; a few moments more of focus and he could stop it completely. He needed to act and more importantly, to think. He herded the others before him as he spoke.**

"**Nothing in the Universe can handle those things. Time's been damaged. They've come to sterilize the wound by consuming everything inside it."**

**Rose's was the last voice he heard. "Is this because… is this my fault?"**

**The Doctor sighed as the words hung in the air and went to find the source of the second mystery, whatever had caused the opening to heal itself, hoping that it was not a lure to draw him away from the others. As a lure, it was inescapable and perfect.**

"**How long will that hold?"**

"**No idea. Did anyone notice the year on the cornerstone outside?" The Doctor looked at Turlough first then glanced at the others. Outside the door, visible through the low windows beside it, they could see the claws of the great bat that seemed to be made of stone still hacking at the door. It seemed as if such a thing should give way to the beast at once but it was making no progress and screeching its frustration. Just on the far side of the ancient wood, the Time Lord rested his hands on it placidly but with great concentration evident on his face. He was reinforcing it somehow, even Turlough, with his very short tenure on the TARDIS knew that, and they each remained silent, although Tegan was biting her lips. **

**The grotesque, clawed bat flew away with a final shriek and the Doctor stepped back from the door to sit down on a wide white pile of canvas that stood nearly a meter tall and not quite three meters long. A folded up tent, he thought absently, now sat on instead of under. He looked up at three pairs of expectant eyes and wondered how to tell them that this time they seemed to have stumbled upon the end of the world, Tegan's at least. She was looking between him and the small windows in their stone frames, the closest one, as always, to speaking.**

"**They're called reapers," he began, pre-empting her, "they should have no place here. I've been to Earth's future hundreds of times since this year and these creatures only show up to destroy, to devour that which doesn't belong in time." He was staring past the three of them now, alternately sickened, frustrated, curious, and terrified. The world was ending and he had no way of knowing why, not even being a Time Lord meant anything to reapers, at least being a lone Time Lord, and he now felt a knife in his mind where the TARDIS had been. Still, he'd never underestimate her gift for self-preservation, nor her instinct to preserve his. Three faces were still staring at him, however, in this room that definitely still existed at the moment. He was, after all, the Time Lord… one who was perhaps soon to be Lord of Nothing. Well, whatever he was about to be, he wasn't about to become it sitting on a tent in a basement. **

**The Doctor stood up and glanced at the windows, determination overcoming mystified shock. "Something terrible obviously went on just before we arrived, a catastrophic incident in time, something that didn't before now. It was either cruelly intentional or colossally stupid but no matter which the reapers are here to take advantage of it. They're parasitic temporal entities and nothing can withstand their absorption, but the older a thing is, the more duration it's had in time, the harder it is for them to destroy."**

**Nyssa nodded slightly, "That's why you brought us in here."**

"**Yes, exactly. However, now there's no way out and going beyond these walls is impossible, even for me, so it looks like if we're to solve this, we'll have to find a way to do it from here."**

**Turlough, still in his school's stuffy and plain uniform frowned at the windows again, "That sounds rather difficult. What are the chances that the focal point of all this could possibly be in the one place we ended up looking for… coffee?" He gave Tegan a disdaining look, as if he was hoping to find a way to blame her for their predicament.**

**Tegan looked up at him briefly, having missed the dismissive look he'd given her. As for their being at the focal point, it seemed as if the same doubts were occurring to her but she wasn't inclined to show agreement with him regardless. The Doctor managed a smile despite the circumstances as he watched the progression of Tegan's thoughts go from aggravated agreement with Turlough, to resentment at agreeing with Turlough, to suspicion that Turlough might have caused the whole thing. He knew her too well but welcomed the next step in her mood as she met his eye and wondered at the dim smile there. "All right, where do we start?"**

"**Well, it's very doubtful that we'll learn anything just in this room. Our first order of business is to see if anyone else has taken shelter in here who might tell us what was going on just before the reapers arrived."**

**Tegan nodded, a tiny chance was better than none. "Good then, there's a door back there and one up toward the front of the church."**

**Turlough had already assumed Tegan was considering the chance he was to blame and wanted to allay her suspicions before they grew to something dangerous to his own agenda. (Although, at the moment, it was hard to worry much over what the Black Guardian wanted of him.) Turlough decided to try and be of help immediately and headed for the door Tegan had pointed at behind them. He had just turned the handle when the other door flew open and a man stepped through it and stopped dead, a man with close-cropped hair, black pants, and a comfortably worn leather jacket. He was staring at the Doctor with wide, slightly manic blue eyes and a mysteriously outraged and bizarrely… relieved… expression. The stranger suddenly threw up his arms in exasperation and folded them tightly over his chest as they fell.**

"**Oh, of course. Fantastic. Great! I shoulda' bloody well known it was me!" **

**Tegan, Nyssa, and even Turlough suddenly knew he wasn't… exactly… speaking about himself.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**The Doctor frowned for a moment at his other incarnation, disappointed and understandably curious but mostly relieved. It would be easier to get to the bottom of things with the two of him. Sensing his future self wasn't in a social mood he gestured with his rolled up hat back toward the three companions. "I suppose one-way introductions are in order. Which of me are you?"**

**The Doctor's defiant glare remained for a moment and he glanced back up the steps nervously, it seemed, before coming the rest of the way into the room and unclenching his arms. "Ninth," he said quietly, suddenly thoughtful and a trace bewildered, thinking again as the indignance faded. His eyes went from his younger face to the others, nodding at Nyssa and a very deservedly nervous Turlough as they moved forward. His expression changed slightly when his eyes fell to Tegan, standing where she had been since he'd erupted, shouting, through the door, shoulder to shoulder with the man he'd been, her mouth a thin, determined line, her gaze sharp despite her confusion. "Tegan, wonderful to see you again. I thought about dropping in but…".**

"… **but there's always something coming up… nothing changes. So, you're the Doc', too. Great, maybe we'll get the end of the world sorted out in time for tea." She turned slightly and looked up at the man she was suddenly thinking of as her Doctor. He sighed and took the cue, the unspoken admonishment that the weirdness had passed for all of them and it was time to get down to business.**

"**So, was it something you came back to fix or something you accidentally did that brought all this about?" His tone was light but unyielding.**

**The Doctor shrugged lightly, looking at the stone walls, the wooden benches stacked near the door, the huge folded up tent, anywhere but the other eerily familiar blue eyes. "Not me, my companion. She… caused a paradox."**

"**I see. I assume then she's Human or the opportunity wouldn't have existed."**

**The Doctor brought his head up, still not meeting his own eyes, calmer ones to be sure, not understanding himself why he was driven to avoid them. "Oh yeah, she's Human, too Human. I did warn her, but she couldn't stop herself in the end."**

**The Doctor sawed patiently on his heels for a moment, knowing he was trying to decide how much to tell himself without creating another paradox for the reapers to feed on, one made of Time Lord essence. Nyssa had come up to his other side and was studying the man he would be with her most common expression, polite worry. The man was definitely out of sorts, as much about the woman upstairs as the situation she had created. It was another glance at Tegan, who had taken a breath to speak, that moved him. "Stop herself from what?"**

"**I'm trying to figure out if I should tell you."**

"**Oh, I see. Well, let's reason this out, shall we? If you tell me and it contributes to our straightening this mess out, chances are a time line as catastrophically affected as this one will right itself at such a severe turn that even my memory will be wiped of the incident. That prevents one paradox. Alternately if my knowing doesn't help and we're all consumed by reapers it won't matter all that much anyway. Now, since I know that, there's little reason you shouldn't so… out with it or I shall allow Tegan to carry on with the questions." He said the latter with a slight smile and tapped himself on the chest with the rolled up hat.**

**Defeated, frustrated, and avoiding Tegan's already irritated gaze (although he didn't know which of him had earned her ire after that last threat), the Doctor threw up his hands again, not quite as far. "She saved her father's life."**

**The Doctor froze in mid-breath, calculating the ramifications of the five simple words he'd just heard. Under other circumstances, they would have been warm, wonderful, loving words that told of devotion. Under these circumstances, they had meant the creation of a paradox that was destroying the world. He finished the breath and looked back at his companions, knowing their frailties all too well himself. "All right, how did it happen?"**

"**A road accident."**

"**Yes… and…?"**

"**She knocked him out from in front of a car."**

**Another long thirty seconds passed. The Doctor shoved his hands into his trousers again and scowled. "Look, I know this is difficult but if she accidentally saved her father's life there may be a loophole we can util--."**

"**I told you, you fool, I told her not to!" The Doctor exploded, wondering that his other self didn't seem moved by the show of temper. Tegan opened her mouth but fell silent after one look at her Doctor's unfazed expression. "I told her not to and she bolted anyway, right past where the two of us were standing from the last try, headed for the street. She's a gymnast, right, moved so damned fast I couldn't stop her. The next thing I knew---."**

"**Now just a moment," the Time Lord interrupted himself hotly. "You were already there from a time before, a triple paradox?"**

"**She wasn't supposed to save him, I told her we couldn't---." The Doctor ground his teeth for a moment and looked at the floor, arms folding again. "I told her over and over we couldn't interfere, not with this. It wasn't like---."**

"**You idiot, you complete idiot! What the devil have I become?" Tegan and Nyssa ducked back as the Doctor's hands snapped out of his pockets and looked as if they were next to go to his own future throat. His face had darkened with rage that none of his fellow travelers had seen before and the air in the room suddenly seemed charged with a malignant force that crept along every nerve in their own bodies, all emanating from the younger of the two Time Lords. His other self seemed somewhat cowed but still angry and defiant, and suddenly somewhat embarrassed as he slouched against the stone wall.**

"**She only wanted someone with him when---."**

"**I don't care what her motivations were and I can't imagine how you justified tempting the fate of a world for one girl!" The Doctor paused for breath again, his face still glowing. His gaze went to Nyssa as she dared approach him again, trying to be, as always, a reservoir of calm for them all despite the empathic torment they must both have been inflicting on her. **

"**Doctor, I don't exactly understand, but if we can help…," her usually steady voice faltered with frustration.**

**The Doctor did find himself calming outwardly as her saw her distress but his rage remained undimmed. "Oh, it's very simple, Nyssa, so simple-minded someone with your sense wouldn't dare think of putting someone through it, and knowing me now you'd know I'd know better as well." His voice rose and darkened again with disbelief and disappointment, "At least for now." He gave himself a recriminating glance. "He took her back, Nyssa, back to see her father die."**

**The Doctor straightened slowly under the dazed yet somehow horrified look in Nyssa's eyes, her innocent disapproval somehow wounding him far more than that of his former self. "Rose… she didn't want him to die alone. You understand alone, Nyssa, better than any… almost." His voice broke but then caught as their gazes locked and he desperately sought the sympathy he always remembered there.**

"**I know you do. You had no choice." The desperation in him struck her empathic receptors like a waterfall of raw plasma and Nyssa caught a momentary glimpse of an agony that had briefly eclipsed his mind, a recovery that was pretense on more levels that she could grasp in such a brief moment. He suddenly retreated but she stepped forward and took his hands lightly in her own, taking what she could of his pain into herself, sharing the part of herself that had enabled her to survive incomprehensible loss.**

"**I do, Doctor, I understand," Nyssa replied, almost whispering, transfixed and confused by the power of her empathic response, one far more powerfully attuned than it had been with the Doctor she traveled with now. It was if what had wounded her had been the beast that wounded him, its claws tainted with the same soul-poisoning toxin. She released him after a moment and he let go of her slowly, a lingering ache in both their minds, a renewed agony and a tortured gratitude.**

**The Doctor felt Nyssa's hands fall from his and bit back a small moan. Of all the people he knew and had known, it was Nyssa alone who would understand having one's world torn from them, or perhaps imagine the guilt of being responsible. He would have gone to her eventually, he knew, visited her at Terminus, told her what happened, learned how to survive it or survive it better. If he had the chance to meet with one soul before the world ended at least he'd had one moment of true understanding before he no longer existed.**

**The Doctor frowned as he watched the long, strange moment pass between his companion and his future self. The fact that he'd taken this Rose back to her father's death seemed to have been lost completely on the Trakenite the moment she had met the eyes that would someday be his. "Nyssa?"**

**The young woman turned quickly when she did move but he knew she had taken a moment to compose herself before she faced him. "Doctor?"**

"**Are you all right?"**

**She pulled a smile out of nowhere and, seeming anything but, reassured him she was before going to sit down on the folded tent, her eyes not meeting his gaze. The Doctor turned back to continue his brutal assessment of taking a companion back to such a horrible event and found that he had disappeared.**

**They were, of course, just as he'd left them, frozen in the moment where he had commanded Time to hold them. It wasn't fair, of course, the Universe never was. If this was his end, twice over now – just like Rose, then there was no more unfair version of himself he could've had to deal with, the one who had embodied the gentlest aspects of himself, his patience, his wisdom, and then Nyssa. The destruction of her world seemed right now as if it was his fault, too, perhaps if the Master had hated him so much…**

**He walked through them slowly, wincing at the shadows that sailed past outside, thinking furiously and letting Time slip back to its normal rhythm. **

**When it did he felt another glitch in it and broke into a run, knowing on what it was focused, feeling a tiny stab of illogical, painful hope. Time was making an effort to right itself, and besides himself and himself in the basement, there was only one other force on Earth at the moment capable of manipulating time --- manipulating time… and relative dimensions in space. **

**The Doctor headed up the stairs that lead to the upper floors, to the office that overlooked the courtyard of the church. Pete was there, her father, the man who shouldn't be, stepping past the table on the far side of the room to join him as he headed toward the window. "There's smoke coming up from the city but no sirens. I don't think it's just us. I think these things are all over the place, maybe all over the world." **

**Pete was right, of course, cleverer than he gave himself credit for being but the Time Lord only heard him from a distance. Moved from the corner where it had been, the small gold car that had killed him was swooping around the corner before the old church, appearing and reappearing from one turn of the corner to the next.**

**Nyssa still wouldn't meet the Doctor's gaze and despite having a mind that applied logic better than any he knew she now seemed less concerned about what was going on outside than what she had seen in his future self. Turlough was sitting beside her and the Time Lord experienced a childish moment of mild indignance when she turned and responded to him. She had almost seemed catatonic to that point. **

**Nyssa's response to his future self, had not, of course, escaped her best friend but Tegan also could not take her eyes from the huge shadows that sailed past the small windows above their heads. On occasion a scream, dimmed by stone and glass would reach them, frustrated shrieks from the things the Doctor had called reapers; more rarely the shriek was Human and filled with terror. Tegan scowled at the shadow that had just now flitted past and softened her expression when she looked up at the Doctor.**

"**So, these things are out there because the person traveling with him saved a single man's life?"**

"**It isn't a matter of who she saved, Tegan, but that anyone was saved at all."**

"**But we've interfered with the past ourselves. Why would it make such a huge difference for them? These things never showed up for us."**

"**Yes, Tegan, we have interfered but only as a counterbalance to forces that would otherwise have turned the course of history from its normal path in its time stream. One has to be a Time Lord to know what that path would be, what form that interference should take." The Doctor sighed and dropped his hands into his pockets, "What was on his mind, I can't begin to understand, and that disturbs me the most of all, even in light of those things out there."**

**Tegan glanced at the window again and kicked off her shoes after a look at the relatively clean floor. She wasn't about to let her feet kill her before she vanished from existing. "He seemed more rattled to see all of us than to see you, Doc'. Maybe if you talked to him alone you could get to the bottom of all this, figure it out between the two of you. We'll look after Nyssa, maybe you should…", she suddenly smiled and then gave a thin, edgy laugh, "go find yourself."**

**The Doctor smiled in return, quietly admonishing himself for his initial regret that Tegan had rejoined the TARDIS crew. She was his reminder that intricacies of technology and time travel sometimes got in the way of solving problems brought about by technology and time travel. "Yes, you're right. I should, and I should find out why these reapers aren't being stopped by the High Council." He withdrew his hands from his pockets and folded one arm tightly across his chest as his other hand worried at his chin for a moment. "Two Time Lords running about with all those people would create even more havoc, but I do have a way around that. It is vital that the three of you stay down here and remain alert. And something's changed in the last few minutes – I can feel it -- that also bears investigating." His head lifted and looked from Tegan over to Nyssa and Turlough. "I have to go upstairs to have a chat with… myself, get to the bottom of this. All of you need to stay here, however. I'm sure things are complicated enough upstairs."**

**Turlough came to his feet, working nervously at his stringy, black tie. "Now hold on a moment. What if those things outside try to get in here? I thought you said ---."**

"**It is the building that is protecting you, Turlough, not I. Given the fact that we are in the foundation, I would daresay that you'll be safer by remaining here, with or without me." The Doctor gave him a look of mild challenge and Turlough frowned slightly and tried to keep his face in front of the two women, especially the smirking Human.**

**The Doctor made his way to a small side-room of the large, white-walled chapel, a room dimly lit with a small array of white candles and a single window. There were two people in it, frozen in time, a young blond woman with dark eyes that were bright and intelligent. She was wearing a blue jacket and gripping the arm of a man with thin red hair wearing a gray suit. His face was in a rictus of a nervous smile. The Doctor studied them for a moment, knowing he had found the paradox and the young woman who would be his companion in the future. She looked the type, quick on her feet even locked in time, smart, athletic, spirited. He'd chosen well or would.**

"**She's just what you're thinking," a voice intruded, oddly enough his own save for the hook to the accent. His future was standing on the other side of the incongruent father and daughter, not looking at him, immune to the temporal field he was exuding. "Saved my life, this one, without a blink our first scrape together, even took it well when we hopped five billion years up and she got to see the end of this world, well the before this end. She met the last Human alive and smart-mouthed her almost right off. You should know the concept."**

**The Doctor smiled thinly and briefly, not wanting to be drawn from his goal when so little time remained. They could only stop it within the haven of the ancient walls. "There's more to all this than what you've told me. I can understand why you didn't want to say anything in front of the others, especially Nyssa; she's had a world end already but it's only you and I here now, or me and me, if you like."**

**The Doctor's arms folded across his broad chest, closing his jacket over the olive sweater. "We can't do anything to make them stronger, not if we have a way out of this. There's too much I can't tell you for us to even start." He suddenly offered the other Doctor his best manic grin. "You're going to have to trust yourself on this one."**

"**Am I? I find that rather difficult in light of the fact that you created this appalling situation with sentimental, amateur blundering," the younger Time Lord answered, his voice rising in pitch and volume. "Let's get to the second part of this nonsense, shall we? Why hasn't the High Council stopped the reapers? What explanation could there be for letting them scour the Universe? Even they couldn't be that callous about eliminating temporal aberrations."**

**The Doctor facing him over his companion's outstretched arm didn't answer him. He seemed to become as near-catatonic himself as his encounter with Nyssa had left her. It lasted only a moment and he looked into his companion's unmoving eyes the next and began shaking his head. **

**  
"Not that -- you can't know that. It won't stop this world ending. It can only speed it up. We have enough paradoxes here already without us, me, bringing about the end of everything else."**

"**Everything else," his fifth self echoed, his eyes on the temporal beast that was clawing at the windows outside, giant claws skittering against the age of the brilliantly-colored glass. "You're talking about a Critical Event Paradox, all because of something you've done, we've done, perhaps I've done."**

"**No, I'll tell you that much, not you, not your time 'round." The Doctor shook his head slowly, his eyes still locked on his companion's deathly still ones. "It won't be you, but you've got to let this alone. Knowing why the reapers came here is one thing, knowing why they aren't being sent off is another."**

"**Have you at least notified Gallifrey?" The Doctor demanded, hands on his hips, his chin outthrust. "Are you that worried about their recrimination that you would let Earth be temporally sterilized?"**

"**You know better than that, you fool!" The Doctor exploded, finally glancing away from his companion's face to meet the rage and confusion of his younger self. "All right fine. I'm the fool. I have to make sure this won't happen again with her if we get out of this, that's all, and I've said too much already. I know why you came up here, away from the others, but the Universe doesn't care about us now, we're on our own, but there might be a way. We have to work this out on our own, the TARDIS and I. The Universe might not care about us but we still have to worry about it. I can't tell you more and believe me… that leaves me a lot more to live with than it does you!"**

**The Doctor watched the retreating back of his future self as he stalked away, back to the chapel, back toward a middle-aged blond woman sitting in a pew next to a brightly-colored cloth baby carrier. He had walled his mind off so harshly that his younger self barely knew he existed. As shell-shocked by his other's behavior as Nyssa had been, he stumbled back down the stairwell, and let time back on its course.**

**Tegan looked up at the opening of the door and started when she saw the Doctor come through it. His cricketing outfit was perfectly pressed and clean, the ridiculous stalk of celery unwilted, his shoes white and trim, yet she'd never seen him look worse so far in this life, even when he'd almost been dead. She sighed and turned to Turlough, pulling him to his feet and not speaking loudly but with the tone in her voice he knew better than to cross, Black Guardian or not. "Take Nyssa into the other room. Do some looking around. Get her mind off things. He's worse off than the other one was. Go on. Get moving"**

**Turlough scowled but nodded, as glad to be away from Tegan as he was to help Nyssa. He truly had nothing against the girl. She was very kind to him by contrast and didn't possess the suspicion that practically emanated from the Human woman like a force-field. At the moment, if he squinted a bit, he could almost see it glowing around her. He went back to Nyssa and with a few simple words encouraged her to join him as they went to explore the large basement area beneath the main chapel.**

**The Doctor watched them go with a relieved and distant expression. Tegan had taken charge of the situation with her usual tact but right now he was grateful for her blunt and effective methods. She'd been with him no longer than Nyssa but she was older in ways that years didn't count. He also knew the state his conversation with his future self had left him in and wanted no part of harming Nyssa further. As far as Turlough was concerned there were still too many questions in his mind about the boy's motives, if not the volumes of them that were in Tegan's. All of which went through his mind as she steered him to the pile of canvass next to the outside door and handed him a glass of something she'd gotten from somewhere. "Here, I never thought I'd say this but you need a drink. It's just you and me, you silly Time Lord; let's hear it."**

**The Doctor took the glass stiffly, nodding, feeling a dim smile on his face. Red wine, he realized when it came close enough to his nose. "This is supposed to be sacred you know."**

**Tegan took the glass from him when he'd emptied it and placed it on a crate just inside her reach as she sat beside him. She turned back with a half-smile, noticing the flush back in his cheeks. "Well, this is the Apocalypse, right? I can't think of a holier mess we've been in …this week."**

"**Trust me; this is by far the worst mess we've encountered. Trust me because I know it'll be my fault, and I can't even find out why. It's not just a matter of some ridiculous, sentimental mistake. The reapers shouldn't be here at all - the High Council should have stopped them," he paused for a breath and tried to ignore the expression of worry on Tegan's face. "On top of all the rest, if I have a future, it seems I'll be going mad. What a wondrous thought that is, even if we do survive I'll forget all this anyway and be unable to prevent any of--."**

"**Doc! Hush up, I don't know what to tell you right now but… you trust me… rambling nonstop never makes anything better. Haven't I taught you that yet?" She suddenly stood up and moved close enough to him to loop her arm through his tightly and grip his other hand as it closed gratefully over her wrist. **

"**There is some other evil going on here of Galactic proportion, something my future self is refusing to share, for good reason perhaps but his judgment is certainly in question for taking such a foolish chance with this reality. We haven't much more than minutes to straighten it out and I am being prevented from being part of the process because of a future where I'll have lost one of the things that I value the most about myself." **

**Tegan tightened her grip on him gently, "Then just stop for a minute, Doc. Dwell on what we do know. If anyone has a chance of getting through to that bloke, it's you, maybe that's why we ended up here."**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**She'd meant it. She was sorry. How could she not be? The stupid thing was his asking her, asking her if she was sorry for a moment of emotion that was suddenly ending the world. He wondered now if he'd simply wanted to give her the opportunity, wanted to make her his soul mate in destroying her own world when her decent side got the better of her. After all, he'd been doing the right thing, too.**

**Rose Tyler had looked at him with impossibly huge eyes, and even more impossible to ignore tears and told him she was sorry. For what, he wondered now, being Human? For loving the father she had idolized in her mind, the man he knew she sometimes saw in him. As if he'd not lived with enough guilt already, he was inflicting it on another innocent soul. He almost stopped then, given up, would have but for her. She had leapt into his arms, hope touching her once again… and faith in him. They had both felt it at the same time, the kinetic energy transmitted through the Vortex. The TARDIS had sent a signal to him from where its inner workings had retreated to find a way to bring them home, and maybe save everyone else, maybe save the world. It might have been impossible even for a being as temporally powerful as the TARDIS but not for two of them. The arrival of the second TARDIS into the corrupted time stream had given them the chance, if the two ships working together could only beat the odds now. If nothing else, it gave the frightened wedding party hope, wasn't that what these things were all about? **

**The Time Lord glanced about at the small sea of tense faces, all raptly watching the bizarre sight of his TARDIS drawing itself back out of the Vortex, its chameleon circuit still only able to produce a police box. It was probably the weirdest, most ridiculous thing imaginable to them, and now they had no choice but to accept their bizarre and dwindling reality for what it was and watch the TARDIS and its unseen companion somewhere outside struggle to simply be. He smiled as he sat next to Rose and realized why he loved Humans again. Weird as it was, they had taken the shock and simply accepted it, with no more explanation than he'd given them. He glanced at Rose as he sat beside her and moved closer without realizing it, his leg resting against her knee.**

**There was one more thing he had to do, let himself and his former companions know what was going on, that all might soon be right with the world. Perhaps he was missing something to help the TARDIS along that his counterpart might remember. He reached out again, holding them all in the instant, coming slowly to his feet and stepping past Rose as he headed for the side room that accessed the stair. He didn't look behind him, didn't realize that his leg was still touching her knee, that she hadn't been affected as the others had been.**

**His mind cringing at the thought of encountering his younger self again, the Time Lord nevertheless pressed onward, tuning out the sound of the reapers still stalking them, perhaps now sensing their prey had a chance. He was moving quietly as was his habit, his steps softening even more as he saw that the door at the bottom of the stairs was slightly open. **

**The Doctor stopped as he drew closer, looking through the small opening at his former self. He was sitting next to Tegan, his eyes closed, head in his hands, one of her arms was around him, the other was linked supportively through the arm nearer to her own. She was talking softly, so softly that he couldn't hear her, and an ironic smile straightened his lips as the future Doctor slowly sat down on the cold, stone stairs. Time was still convulsing around them and around the two TARDISes trying to fix it. He couldn't remember what Tegan had been saying, but if it were by failure of memory or failure of the TARDIS's efforts, he didn't know. He'd forgotten so much that was important. One of Tegan's no-nonsense lectures was something he desperately needed to hear for himself right now. **

**Rose stood at the top of the small stairwell and watched the Doctor for a few long seconds. She'd seen too much to be distracted by a thing like his freezing time, although the candle flame poised in mid-flicker gave her a moment's pause. She didn't dawdle though. He couldn't stop Time outside or he would have, she knew. He seemed transfixed by something in the room beyond the door, so transfixed that he didn't hear her walk down the stairs behind him until she'd reached the one just above him. He looked up at her with mild surprise but then gave her a worn but welcome grin. If he cared how she had escaped the effects of his bio-generated temporal stasis he didn't ask. He simply made room for her when she squeezed in beside him and stared at the two unfrozen strangers in the small room behind the cocked door.**

"**Who are they then?" She asked quietly, sensing his secrecy.**

**The Time Lord smiled and reached for her hand, taking it gratefully. "I hope you're ready for this. I don't have much time to make you believe."**

"**Make me believe?" Rose smiled suddenly and gently, "You're like Peter Pan. You can make me believe anythin', Doctor."**

**He smiled thinly in return and gave her a slow and measured nod, "Well then Wendy, you know how in different movies they could have different blokes being Peter Pan? That's sort of like this."**

"**Go on," she prodded, her lips folding into her mouth.**

"**Remember I told you I was 900 years old?" She nodded seriously. "The reason we can live that long, one of them, is that we don't always look like this. That bloke in there, he's … he's me, Rose, what I looked like a while back. The girl, her name's Tegan. She traveled with me for a while just like you, not a scientific brain cell in her head less you talked about aeroplanes but one of the bravest, cleverest people whoever hitched a ride in the TARDIS." His eyes went from the dark-haired woman to the blond one beside him, not many years younger. She was staring at him and his currently dispirited former self in turn, her eyes finally resting on the stone beneath their feet.**

"**D'you mean you might not be… you… someday?"**

**He shrugged, the leather jacket rustling against the fabric of his jumper. "Well, I'm always the Doctor, just the body changes, usually not the memory, but I had a tough go of it last time round. Mind it wasn't easy when I turned into him."**

**Rose was still staring at the ground but then reached up the hand not holding his to touch his face. "It's just… you know… I've gotten used to you being you, used to you grinning at me like you oughta' have a candle lit in your 'ead. I don't know if I could do with that sort o' thing. Why does it happen?"**

"**If I get hurt bad enough to kill me; it's called regenerating. That me, he gets poisoned, goes out giving the antidote to someone else. The one before 'im fell off a tower."**

"**Cripes, you're like a cat. I can't think what that…", Rose fell silent and looked back at the Doctor who wasn't her Doctor and the woman named Tegan who was cajoling him quietly about something, her hand moving on his back.**

"**Tegan stayed when I regenerated into him, that's the fifth one of me," the Doctor said almost absently, hoping it would help her accept the idea. This was Rose; she'd adapted already. "I suppose you should meet him."**

"**Well wait, you told me not to touch the baby 'cause it was me. Should you be around him?"**

"**It's different for Time Lords, we're anomalies as it is, especially me. We can circumvent the paradox, but you can't say anythin' about Gallifrey being gone. He can't know."**

**Rose shook her head quickly. "I don't ge' it? If he comes before you, when he runs about time, couldn't 'e stop what happened?"**

"**No, he couldn't and of all the versions of me I'd saddle with that knowledge, he's the last. Trust me, Rose, if you think this is bad, if he finds out about Gallifrey, those reapers will have a Universe and all of Time itself to devour." He stood and tugged her up with him, "Come on, it's time you met me."**

**Rose followed him up and kept her grip on his hand as they went down the last few steps and through the slightly open door. Tegan shot to her feet, standing before her Doctor and looking as if she wanted to challenge the new Doctor in some way but remembering he would be the Doctor at some point as well. She looked back the blond Time Lord as he came to his feet, an awkward smile on his face as he guessed her dilemma. Her eyebrows lifted for a moment and she turned to look at the young woman. The other Doctor smiled and nodded toward her. **

"**Rose Tyler, this is Tegan Jovanka, the only time the TARDIS had its very own Time hostess."**

**Tegan looked as if she might have smiled except that the end of the world insisted on continuing past the small windows. "You're a bit cheeky under the circumstances," she commented but shook Rose's hand after she very awkwardly disengaged it from the Doctor's. "It's nice to meet you, Rose. Guess you didn't have your good sense either," she offered, sighing.**

**Rose grinned back, "That and mostly I saw 'e didn't seem to have his."**

**Both women grinned up at the bemused smile on one Doctor's face and the long-suffering pout on the other's. Tegan twitched her head back toward the door that lead to the larger part of the main basement. "I think these two need to have a talk that'll make our heads hurt. There's someone else I think you'd like to meet and someone else I guess you'll have to… Let's leave them to sort this out."**

**Rose turned her glance toward her Doctor for a moment, her silent inquriy that he was all right to leave. Without a word he nodded and saw her off with a gentle hand to her back. His younger counterpart watched their interaction for a moment, nodding politely at both young women as they went through the door into the musty smelling room. His eyes flickered upward. ""She's very spirited. Must be quite a handful at times."**

"**Yeah, she's that."**

"**As in someone whose passions you know sometimes get the better of her?"**

**The Doctor's face, having dropped toward the ground, suddenly lifted, anger flickering in his eyes. "Back to that again, am I? Maybe you're right. She saved my life before she knew I was a Time Lord, had a ship that could make sure you never missed a bus. My mouth got the better of us when I told her she only came along for the ride to fix what happened to her father. She deserved better than that."**

"**She deserved better than you agreeing to put her in this position at all. What the devil was on your mind?"**

**The Doctor looked up at the centuries-old ceiling, less than a foot away from his head. "You really feel like hashing at this again, Junior? Look, she had an old hurt, one I could fix, just wanted someone with her Dad when he died, nothin' else."**

"**And so for this young woman, you risked every living person on her planet at the moment of her father's death and every one of them that came after, the future of a world? If she did as you said saving you, then you knew the danger, knew that she could act on the same very Human impulse for her own father." The Doctor sighed tightly to release some of the tension, feeling trapped somewhere between disbelief and confusion. His future self took a breath to answer but wasn't given the chance. "I know what you're about to say, why wouldn't I? You thought she was strong enough, that she could stand the strain? Well, I happen to know a great deal about companions whose strength eclipses every other perception. Let me remind you that on occasion that strength can lead to as much trouble as anything else."**

**The Doctor looked down from the ceiling, never having met the condemning gaze of his younger self, accepting his rebuke with ill grace and resignation. His gaze became distant again in moments, however, reminding himself of the things this part of him didn't know, the blur of pain that ran like a chronic hysteresis in the back of his mind, pain that had clouded his judgment.**

**A small bit of the tension resolved as the Doctor looked into his own eyes in the new face that was pale and haunted beneath a veneer of humor. A new theory came to his mind as he thought over the last few moments, had seen himself interact with a Rose who was not frozen in time. He'd risked a world for her, a companion whose hand he'd been holding so tightly it had been momentarily difficult for her to untangle it from his, had been red where his fingers had gripped. It wasn't like they'd been in danger from himself and Tegan or he'd been pulling her to safety; he'd been holding her hand more for his own sake than hers… then the moment of reassurance he was fine before she'd left with Tegan and the guilt that was upon his older self, guilt that he was trying to assuage through… The younger Time Lord sighed audibly as the realization firmed into understanding.**

"**You care for this young woman, don't you? This girl? Not the average friendship one has for one of our ---."**

**The elder Time Lord took a threatening step closer, fury on him brought about a strained and confirming silence. "Rose does mean the world to me, otherwise I'd never have forgiven her, but if she does mean that much to me then you can hardly talk, can you?" The Doctor pointed toward the door to the main basement, nodding once and sharply. "She started it, didn't she? I was there, I remember… Tegan, always jumpin' in, tough in a scrape, sayin' what we wanted to say. Funny the one who knew nothing about science you ended up calling the soul of the TARDIS." The Doctor's voice suddenly grew quiet and thoughtful as he continued on, his tone less accusing and more reflective. "Made sense in a way; she was a lot like 'er, stubborn, almost unbreakable, saving our neck. No wonder she nearly got past your guard, scared all of us afterward so much that we didn't dare keep any of them long but the kid." The accusation returned to the Doctor's voice again but this time it was blunted. "If Rose has got to me, it's 'cause your turn round, you handed out the key." He looked away as his younger self reddened with a mix of emotions, not all of them negative, and didn't speak for a long moment, either in denial or acceptance. He finally pointed toward the doorway through which their companions had disappeared.**

"**And that aside, we don't have much time. I'd prefer to spend it finding a solution if we can." The Doctor glanced at the door as Tegan, Rose Tyler, Nyssa, and Turlough reappeared. The younger Time Lord wondered for a terrified few moments what, if anything, Tegan might've heard but the gaze she fixed him with was one of simple inquiry, its fix broken as Rose Tyler closed on him.**

"**So, you're the Doctor, too, or were but you're here now, time travel and all that?"**

**The Doctor smiled disarmingly, "It's complicated, I know, but true. I would say I'll look forward to meeting you but if this all works out, I won't have the chance. You'll have to remember for us how lovely it was to meet you."**

**Rose grinned up at him, taking the hand he offered in both her own, his cool grip reinforcing that he was who she'd been told. His hands were smoother and gentler but she could also feel the strength in them that was not Human. "Trust me; meeting two different people who end up being the same person… it's not somethin' you forget."**

**Turlough was watching the future Doctor keenly, trying to keep the worry off his face. If this were indeed the ninth version of the Doctor, his mission had failed. The dark-haired Time Lord met his worried gaze with a quietly manic smile. "Glad this has almost sorted itself out, hmph, Turlough. It's been a pretty… black… day, 'adn't it?" **

"**What do you mean, almost sorted itself out?" The Doctor interrupted.**

**Rose scowled back at her Doctor, "You goof, you didn't manage to tell 'im yet?" Her question ended in an accusing poke.**

**The Doctor winced and frowned back at her, then grinned in a way that Tegan was beginning to find positively creepy. "Yeah, should get on about that, right? The TARDIS, mine, it's regaining its structure upstairs, materialing in here. Seems yours coming along stabilized it enough that it didn't fragment into the anomaly. We'll have this sorted out as soon as she pulls herself out of the Vortex. So, uh, --- looks like I owe you a bit of thanks for dropping in."**

**Tegan stared between the two Time Lords, her expression caught between amused and furious. "All that time we were snooping around in there and you're just now getting around to telling him?" Her eyes darted at her Doctor for a moment. "What the devil were you two talking about?"**

**The Doctor grinned again and seized Rose's hand tightly in his own. "Time's wasting. Tegan, great to hear you again. Nyssa, take care of them, would you? Turlough… Turlough… dump your pockets." His eyes dropped to the young blond woman. "Come on then, Rose, must dash." **

**And with that, they did, back upstairs to take their place amongst those held in Time, pretending they'd been there all along as it started flowing again. **

**The Doctor regretted it as soon as they did. It took only minutes for Pete and Jackie to start up again, Rose and her infant self caught in the middle. His warning came too late and the nearest reaper to the paradox of Rose holding… Rose materialized through the church walls.**

**Her infant self forgotten, Rose Tyler stood in the center aisle of the church mere moments later, clutching the TARDIS key, her grief overcoming every thought, even the thought of the end of the world, as she looked at the spot where her Doctor had been. She'd killed him, too, and somehow it hurt worse than killing the rest of the world because he'd trusted her not to be a fool.**

**The Doctor's harsh breathing filled the small sideroom of the basement with a sound that seemed like a dim echo of the TARDIS materializing. He waved Nyssa back as she reached for him and came slowly upright a few moments later, still hanging tightly onto Tegan and Turlough to either side of him. Nyssa watched him carefully as they put him down, her medical skills useless in a 17th century basement on Earth. She had a distinct feeling that they would have been useless in the finest laboratory on Gallifrey, however, and was forced to wait as the malaise that had gripped the Time Lord passed.**

**Turlough finally broke the worried silence. "What's the matter, Doctor?" He tried to sound sincere and knew he was failing in Tegan's ears.**

"**He's gone," the Doctor said stiffly, waving off the others as he came back to his feet, eyes locked on the ancient wooden door.**

**Nyssa's voice reached him next, calm and steadying, her own angst forgotten at facing his. "Who is, Doctor?"**

**The pale Time Lord looked down at her slowly, then his eyes swept to take in all three of his companions. "Me, I'm afraid."**

**Tegan closed her eyes and ground her teeth for a moment. "If you're going up there again, I'm coming with you. I'm not going out hiding in a basement. I guess you'll be staying here, Turlough?"**

"**You're all staying here." The Time Lord interjected, cutting off Turlough's rejoinder. "Tegan, don't argue. If there's yet to be a way out of this, I need to find out what's going on. The TARDIS is trying to tell me something but the interference is too great. I will… I'll come back with all of you if… if it seems---." He fell silent and escaping Tegan's darting hand, he disappeared, this time leaving his companions locked in time as well.**

**The Doctor walked through the small throng of people who didn't know he was there. He stood for a moment and watched the motionless tears on Rose's cheek as she clutched the TARDIS key, her expression a study of incomprehensible anguis. He turned from her with a sigh and followed where his instincts were leading him, up to a small loft room above the chapel. **

**The red-haired man was there, the one who shouldn't be, the one for whom the world was ending. He was standing facing a small window, having been squinting past its criss-crossed wooden trim, watching over and over as a small gold car erupted from one anomaly to vanish into another one. His vision much better than a Human's, the Doctor didn't need to squint to see the driver throw his arms up at some unseen obstacle just before the corruption in the continuum devoured him again. **

**This was it, what the TARDIS had been trying to tell him, that it had drawn the initial paradox to them, close enough to fix, close enough for one man to save a world. The Doctor watched it a few more times and then heard the bricks outside begin to crumble as the first of the reapers made progress against the ancient stone. Sighing, he reached out and touched the static Human. He whirled around to face the strangely-dressed man who for some unimaginable reason had a shaft of celery stuck to his lapel.**

"**Who are you? Where've you come from?"**

**The Doctor smiled thinly. This was always the hard part. "That's very complicated. Let's just say I'm an associate of the Doctor's and someone who cares very much for your daughter."**

"**She is latchin' onto the strangest blokes these days, hmph? Are you going to be able to help us? 'Cause 'e didn't have much chance at all once they were in 'ere. Saved the lot of us for a moment but ---." Rose's father's voice faltered under the cloud of confusion and the Doctor stepped close enough to him that he could turn him back toward the window.**

"**May I ask your name?"**

**The man turned slightly, "Peter, Peter Alan Tyler."**

"**Hmph… well good to meet you, Peter Alan Tyler. I've come to answer your… question. The one you've been asking yourself." The Doctor said quietly, struggling to meet the pale blue eyes.**

**Pete Tyler met the Time Lord's gaze with a thin, unsteady smile. "You lot are pretty clever."**

**The Doctor sighed more to himself than anyone. "I used to think so… but yes, I can answer this. It would work, Pete, and I'm afraid my time vessel is responsible for bringing the means of… correcting this, here, within your reach."**

**Peter Alan Tyler accepted the truth with a relieved smile. He'd been going to try it anyway. Now he knew, at least, it would work. The church shook again under a renewed battering from the reapers outside, eager to devour the last bastion of Human life for hundreds of miles, the source of their frenzy. Pale and shaking, he extended his hand to the Doctor and felt the cool skin, inhumanly cool skin, against his own.**

"**Better get on with this right?"**

**The Doctor nodded. "So it seems, but give me a few moments to return to my associates. You have enough time to speak to Rose."**

"**All right, thank you… uh?"**

"**Doctor, just another Doctor. It was an honor to meet you, Peter Alan Tyler." With that, with words so grossly inadequate, the Doctor retreated through to door and hurried back to the sideroom of the basement. Soul-weary, he stood between Nyssa and Tegan, wincing and gripping their shoulders as the screech of tires and a gut-wrenching thump reached his more sensitive ears. Moments later, the sound forgotten, his grip propelled Tegan and Nyssa gently through the front door of the TARDIS, searching a shop that sold celery and fresh ground coffee. They joined the crowd on the bustling street as they Doctor searched his pocket for currency that would work, wondering if Tegan still had her purse. A little tinkering with the bank computer and they could use her credit card.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Prologue**

**One more anomaly remained, a small one, inconsequential to the scheme of things. A police box sat on a non-descript street in a bland suburb, next to a plain wrought iron fence and an average-looking tree. Police boxes hadn't been around for decades. A few people stopped for pictures, tourists off the path on the way to their bed and breakfast and reminiscing locals who didn't know why it'd been left there wondered if they were going to start using them again. A few of them tried the phone. Fewer tried the door and found it impossible to move, wouldn't even budge a centimeter. It was much stronger than the battered appearance made it seem. **

**It was an hour before either Rose or the Doctor moved. They had dragged each other inside the TARDIS and made it as far as one of the benches facing the console before collapsing. Rose folded down over her knees, still crying softly and the Doctor sat beside her, one arm over her shoulders as he stared into the swirling energy in the shaft of the time rotor. He'd almost ended two worlds, almost let an alien girl who had lived two insignificant Earth decades share the blame with him. The simple act of sitting with her father as he died had seemed such an innocent request, circumstances he could control, but he couldn't control any of it in the end. He was right, well, the other him was right, he should have known, shouldn't have taken the risk when he knew that nothing in the Universe could stop the reapers if something went wrong. By now he ought to know that it always did, his memory wasn't that compromised. **

**The Time Lord finally looked at the Human as she quieted and lifted her head. The enormity of all that happened and all that didn't slowly settled into both their minds. If the other TARDIS hadn't shown up Earth would have ended, now and in the future. The TARDIS knew it. At the moment she had retreated from the Doctor's awareness, needing time to forgive the chance he'd taken using her. It was the timeship's absence in his mind that finally broke him, made him slouch forward in turn, his head nearly between his knees. He didn't react, expected it in fact, as Rose's arm stretched across him and her other hand took hold of the arm closest to his own. He did turn his face toward her slightly when she lowered her head on the arch of his back. A few tears drifted sideways across her face but had dried for the most part. Too exhausted to feel anything for herself, she turned her attention to the Doctor, finding it was easier to cope if she was focused on someone else.**

"**It's all right, Doctor. It didn't happen; it's just like it was before." She moved her hand across his back, behind her head, mimicking Tegan, hoping it was familiar and effective. She listened to his slow breaths and the beating of both his hearts and then felt his voice as much as heard it when he finally responded.**

"**No thanks to me, Rose. I was right, he was right. The most I should've done was made sure someone else was with your Dad, even just me. I knew better than this." His voice became muffled as he turned to look back at the metal deck. "Our first time 'round together, you saved my life before you knew that the TARDIS could travel in time. I'm sorry I said what I did. I wasn't upset with you, I was upset with me, and I owed you better."**

**Rose lifted her head from his back, then raised her knee up onto the bench and turned so that she was facing him. "Maybe, but maybe I was using you and didn't know it. Maybe a part of me did want to do what I did… but so bad that I didn't know." She stopped talking, crying again softly herself, blinking hard as she leaned forward to lift the Doctor's chin and turn him toward her. "And maybe you just know me better than I do but I promise, I promise, I'll never not listen to you again. Please, please… can I stay?"**

**The Doctor grinned for a moment against her hand, "Oh, if I had a hydrogen atom for every time I heard one of you say you'd listen… it'd be the Big Bang all over again." The smile evaporated suddenly and he shook his head in her hand. "Only the best travel with me Rose, the ones who don't get drawn in by all they see, the ones I know won't use me, especially since the Universe did. You're not to blame for any of this Rose Tyler, the fact that you want to be proves you shouldn't. It's me; it was me trying to make you understand."**

**Rose straightened and used both her hands to wipe the tears from her face, "Understand what?"**

**The Doctor met her eyes and then looked through her into himself. "Me, I think."**

"**That's sort of a tough job. You don't give me a lot to work with. It comes in bits and then I try and put the pieces together when you're not lookin' and no one's tryin' to kill us." She smiled at him weakly and rested her head on her knee. "What d'you mean "you"?"**

**The Doctor broke eye contact with her and sat back, looking up at the distant ceiling and not seeing it, the loose cables drifting in loops above them. He knew why he liked this console room instead of the clean, small white one he'd used for so many years. It looked unfinished, it looked like a work in progress, it looked broken, like him, like the person he'd become. "Where's the first place I took you, the first thing I showed you?"**

**Rose followed his example, sitting back on the worn yellow cushions and staring upward, her hand blindly finding his between them. "You took me to the space station. You took me to see the end of the world."**

"**Aye, the end of the world, the last of your kind. Some host I was, some mysterious alien Time Lord offering to show you the wonders of the Universe… The first future I take you to the end of everything for your planet, the thing for me that's left me a soul that's barely more than pieces."**

**Rose tightened her grip on his hand at his words and turned toward him, her eyes filling again as his own remained fixed on an unseen ceiling as continued. "I wanted you to know what it was, I suppose, the whole of Time and Space and so I take you to the end of your world. Forget the rest of what happened, it's that I took you to see."**

**Rose shifted her hips and moved closer to him, holding his hand in both her own now. "I figured that out, you know, after the first few days here, first few nights layin' about tryin' to figure out how all this happened, why me, why you. It wasn't that hard after what you told me about your planet, what you 'ad to do. You wanted us to have in common the worst thing that'd ever happened to you." **

**The Doctor's reverie with the ceiling ended then and he turned to look into her eyes, "Pretty transparent, hmph? So transparent I couldn't see it myself till now." He took a slow breath and brought his other hand over to join the knot the others made. "Nyssa, her world was destroyed, too. I rescued her from that, took care of her, helped her to find her way again. She's the last of her people, too, but she found a purpose again, ended a lot of suffering. She's a scientist, a doctor. Got me through that regeneration you met."**

**Rose nodded slowly but frowned, "She didn't look any older than me."**

"**People aged pretty slowly on her world. It was a beautiful place, a lot like Earth take out a few wars. It was the last planet in the Universe that deserved what happened to it. At least with Gallifrey it went to save something greater, at least I hope it did."**

**Rose let go of his hand to stroke his face with one finger, watching his concentration shift to the feel of it as it traveled down his temple and his jaw. "What 'appened to you shouldn't 'appen to anyone. No one should have to be that strong but you were, you are."**

**A smiled of irony quietly lit the Time Lord's face as her finger continued its recursive travels, "Not me, I'm startin' to think you met the strong one, the one of me who let people closest, who wanted to protect them the most, that part of us that knew we needed someone around after we left Gallifrey. The truth is you can't do this sort of thing alone. If you don't have someone to connect with, Time Lord or no, you forget why trying even matters. When we met I was mostly stopping the Nestene because it was almost a lark, kept my mind off things; I'd get save the world and no one would know. My own little purgatory. It was a game; if I'd wanted to just win, I had the anti-plastic to end it." The Doctor turned his head toward her slowly, a smile flitting across his face, a quiet one for once," But you changed all that, Rose Tyler, tagging along, asking stupid questions, makin' yourself a target. You're all good for that, you know. You made me go back into the companion business, made savin' the world matter." When he sat up slightly to turn toward her, Rose was crying again, but this time over a smile that stretched her full lips thin. **

"**Most people who ended up on the TARDIS had done it by accident or they had no choice. I don't often ask them, and never twice." This time when he smiled, she laughed just a little and her eyes glistened warmly behind the tears. The Time Lord sat up a little to look at her and take comfort in the sight but he sobered again after a moment. "This time, when you told me about your dad, I couldn't take it, knowin' somethin' had hurt you like that for so long, the idea of someone dyin' alone, what you were saving me from. I'm glad we did it, Rose, but it shoulda' been done different; all this was my fault. You could never ever have understood what I was ignoring myself. It's me, Rose Tyler, I'm the stupid ape."**

**Rose squeezed her eyes shut and forced out the last of the tears, keeping them closed for a moment to block out sight of the agony on the Doctor's face. She didn't know how much more she could take of his pain; it had become far worse to bear than her own. As she opened her eyes, she freed her hands and took his face firmly between them, her thumbs stroking his cheekbones, a gently teasing smile forcing its way across her face. "All right, then… Say you're sorry, Doctor."**

**A pained laugh escaped the Time Lord, but a laugh at least and he nodded his head as she cradled it. "I am. I'm sorry, Rose Tyler. Can I please ask you to stay?"**

**Rose laughed gently in turn, hearing her own words offered back to her, as strongly as she had offered them herself. She let go of the Doctor's face to pull him into her arms and he turned on the small, upholstered bench when they moved apart and rested his head against her neck. His eyes opened briefly and he looked from Rose's already sleeping face to the glowing column of light above them, one last ache unsoothed for now. 'I'm sorry to you, old girl', he offered silently and after a moment, he breathed a sigh of relief as the TARDIS re-entered his mind. **


End file.
